Creating Safe Spaces

Creating safe spaces to talk and develop connections with other people is a really important factor in our personal development. 

Psychological safety is:

• when we feel able to speak up
• where it's okay to make a mistake or fail at something
• where we can share honestly and openly without fear. 

When we feel unsafe it might stop us:

• being genuine and honest
• sharing personal things about ourselves
• trying to form meaningful relationships with other people.

Fear comes from being put down, shamed or being labelled negatively. 

If we don't feel psychological safety we can form a negative sense of ourselves. Creating a feeling of psychological safety is key to having effective communication with your child or young person.

Read these sentences that show how different children feel. Are they examples of psychological safety or not?

(There are 8 sentences.)